2021 Best of Year winner for Finance Office. The RFP for the 29,332-square-foot wealth-management center called for out-of-the-box thinking and a fresh, world-class experience. The firm won with its “banking conservatory” concept, notes Ministry of Design founder and director Colin Seah.
2021 Best of Year winner for Commercial Lobby/Amenity. “The challenge was how to enhance the majestic quality yet not dwarf human scale,” says Ministry of Design founder Colin Seah of the 32,700 square feet of lobby and amenity spaces he and his team designed for a construction conglomerate’s headquarters, which occupies a Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates skyscraper. The project is the 2021 Best of Year winner for Commercial Lobby/Amenity.
Ministry of Design Merges Banking and Biophilia at a Citibank Wealth-Management Center in Singapore
June 9, 2021
By Rebecca Dalzell
Money plants, parlor palms, and bird’s nest ferns are among the tropical species filling the conservatory at Citi Wealth Hub, a wealth-management center in Singapore by Ministry of Design. Photography by KHOOGJ.
The founder and director of Ministry of Design, Colin Seah, admits that his firm was not an obvious choice to design a high-end bank. “We’re a bit of a black sheep,” he says. “It’s our natural impulse to be slightly rebellious and question convention.” The Singaporean architect has earned accolades for such edgy constructions as the Race Robotics Laboratory, a futuristic black cave, and the piercing triangular Vanke Triple V Gallery. Investment banks, by contrast, favor plush but predictable interiors. Yet Citibank Singapore was ready for a change when it held a competition to create the Citi Wealth Hub, a wealth-management cent